Foggy Sunset

Pages

Friday, 11 May 2012

Betty Mouat Cowl Love

I'm feeling a little nervous about the weather lately, all these waterspouts popping up and intense wind, rain and hail attacks! It seems a little silly, but we are so used to miserable and mild here that the odd shock flash heavy rain fall sticks out.

I also blame my uneasiness on reading the 'Hunger Games' trilogy by Suzanne Collins. I haven't seen the film yet but I powered through the books in a nanosecond and came away with a new fear of the end of civilisation as we know it and a lot of creepy dreams where I was actually in the games myself. It really burrowed deep under my skin. I suppose that means that either a) it was a really well thought out and constructed story, a psychological thriller in the guise of a teenagers book or b) I've finally lost the plot altogether and paranoia is taking over.

Either way, I should light the stove and snuggle under my Rams and Yowes Blanket and read something light and humorous, or knit something pretty.

Knitting something pretty won! I bought Kate Davies latest Textiles web mag and fell for her Betty Mouat Cowl (or BMC). I considered ordering the suggested yarn (Albayarn) but Jamieson & Smith's Jumper Weight is similar and cheaper, so it won out in the end! I tried to pick out my own colour combination at the beginning but I have so many favourites at this stage (the colour range of the J&S is stunning) that I couldn't narrow my choices down to a suitable 9. Ha, imagine that, I couldn't just choose nine solitary colours, total fail on my part.

So I took Kate's lead and ordered 9 similar shades to the ones she had knit the original BMC in. I chose them from the computer screen rather that the shade card (there are some new colours out) and when they arrived I was very surprised and pleased that they looked well all sitting neatly in a line beside each other.

As far as I can the Albayarn is slightly finer than the jumperweight so if I were to make this again I would go up a needle size for a looser gauge.

I will admit to having a nervous moment when I started knitting as until all 9 colours are knit for the first half, without swatching (will I ever learn?), you have no idea how it's going to look all knit together in garter stitch heaven.

Thankfully, the colours are quite at home with each other. A little brighter on the eyes than Kate's muted shades but very me!

My graft at the end was an adventure. As with the cast on (that I managed 4 times for two pieces, now that was 2,184 stitches of fun) my graft was done and redone a few times before I was happy to continue. As ever, I had a momentary lapse in brain waves and knit front and back twice in every repeat instead of knit through back loop so my stitch count was erm, wrong!

So with all those boo boo's and perpetually checking for twists in my join and adding stitches where there should be none, I still managed to finish it in 10 days exactly. Landing neatly on the 10th of May with also happily coincides with the day I met my husband 15 years ago (in a clothes shop, where he was artistically draped over the counter chatting up the shop assistant! Said shop assistant turned out to be his cousin and also my friend. He dropped me home and we've been inseparable ever since :)